


Impure Thoughts

by girlyjuice



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:38:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlyjuice/pseuds/girlyjuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten times that Amy Santiago might possibly have had impure thoughts about Jake Peralta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Professor Henry Vanderhoff

“I feel stupid in this outfit,” comes Jake’s voice from behind the fitting room curtain.

Amy rolls her eyes. She’s tired of waiting around. They’ve been in the thrift store for over an hour, cobbling together outfits to help them blend in for their visit to NYU this afternoon to (hopefully) catch a literature-prof-turned-drug-dealer in the act. Though Amy assured Jake no one would notice them if they just wore their street clothes, Jake insisted on dressing up as a professor. Because that is just the kind of thing Jake does.

“Glasses or no glasses?” Jake calls from inside his booth.

Amy’s playing Kwazy Kupcakes on her phone. That’s how bored she is. She bought and changed into her NYU student costume as soon as they arrived at the thrift shop an hour earlier – faded yoga pants, an NYU hoodie, and a pair of knockoff Uggs. Without looking up, she calls back, “Glasses. Whatever. Hurry up.”

“Okay, bossypants,” he replies. “Are you ready for Professor Henry Vanderhoff to make his big debut?” Amy can’t believe Jake went to the trouble of coming up with not only an outfit but a _name_ for his character. No one is even going to speak to them at the university. His little game of make-believe is a total waste of time.

But then he pushes back the curtain and steps out, and she suddenly thinks maybe Professor Henry Vanderhoff was a _fantastic_ idea.

Jake’s got on a brown tweed blazer with elbow patches and matching tweed pants. His mid-century black leather brogues are impeccably laced and passably shiny. He’s wearing huge, nerdy glasses that lend a certain studiousness to his usually goofy expression. And his hair has been smoothed back from his face into a severe style.

“Leave your research paper on my desk. Late submissions will receive a five-point deduction per day,” he tells Amy in a deep voice with a slight British accent. He quirks an eyebrow at her.

 _Hubba hubba_. Her teacher’s-pet senses are tingling.

His face falls. “What is it? Do I really look that weird?” He turns to check himself out in the mirror. “I mean, I know the elbow patches are a bit much, but…”

Amy finally shakes off her daze enough to clear her throat weakly and say, “No, you look fine. Let’s get going.”

He smiles and offers her his arm – “I can tell you’re going to be an excellent pupil, miss” – and it takes every ounce of Amy’s strength not to swoon onto the floor.


	2. Venti Mocha Cookie Frappuccino

The line at Starbucks is ten people long, and Jake still manages to be the loudest one in the place.

“Santi _ago_! I got you _good_!” he crows, for at least the fifth time that morning.

She’d been having an impassioned debate with Rosa about which cops at the precinct had nerves of steel (Rosa, obviously, and Scully, less obviously) and which would startle if you so much as walked up behind them without warning (Hitchcock and, to a lesser extent, Charles). Amy had tried to make the case for her own bravery, and Jake had overheard and bet her a fancy coffee that he could make her jump before the day was out.

Only a couple minutes passed before he crept up behind her desk and blared a bullhorn in her ear, causing her to whip around and punch him in the face before she even realized what she was doing. There was some debate about whether this counted as him “making her jump,” but seeing as a black eye was beginning to form on his face, Amy thought she probably owed him the fancy coffee anyhow. (That was so like Jake, she thought: making her feel guilty for something that was entirely _his_ fault.)

So here they are, in line at Starbucks, Jake grinning obnoxiously despite his bruised face and Amy scanning the menu for something luxurious but reasonably priced.

They get to the front of the line and Jake intercepts before Amy can say a word. “Hello, garçon,” he tells the guy at the cash register. “I will have a venti cup of your fanciest, frothiest, foamiest concoction, with extra syrup, extra drizzle, and as much whipped cream as you can fit on that sucker without it falling over.” He smirks at Amy as she begrudgingly counts out dollar bills.

When Jake’s order is ready – which the barista announces by calling out “John McClane” because _obviously_ Jake’s Starbucks name is a _Die Hard_ reference – he picks it up off the bar and immediately sticks his tongue straight into the mass of whipped cream adorning the top of the drink, maintaining eye contact with Amy as he wriggles his tongue around in the froth.

He apparently means the gesture to be intimidating or impetuous or something, but Amy is amazed by how swiftly and suddenly she finds this sight… arousing.

His pink tongue surfaces from the cream and travels all around his mouth, licking off the remnants. He keeps on staring at her determinedly with those dark eyes. She can feel her blood traveling southward as she involuntarily pictures this same display happening from between her thighs: his tongue, his lips, his saucy gaze.

And then, just as soon as it started, it’s over. “Mmm, chocolatey goodness,” he interjects. “ _Expensive_ chocolatey goodness that I won by scaring the crap out of you.”

He shoves a travel lid onto the drink and walks out the front door, not holding it open for her, not even checking to see if she’ll follow. But, of course, she does.


	3. Up For Anything

Jake’s telling Amy and Rosa about the weird shit that went down with the pretty blonde medical examiner last night, and casually, in passing, he says, “As you would imagine, I’m normally up for pretty much anything in the bedroom.”

Amy’s interested in the medical examiner story, sort of, but she’s more interested in _this_.

“ _Anything_?” she probes. “Like what? What’ve you done?”

She’s embarrassed she’s even asking. But she kind of needs to know.

Jake’s taken aback. “Um, lots of stuff…? I guess the craziest thing was probably.... Wow, I don’t even know. The time in the back of the limo with the captain of the one-five was pretty great. I should mention that she was a _female_ captain…”

Amy’s _so_ curious. She has so many questions. Fortunately, Rosa asks some of them for her, so she doesn’t have to feel like a weirdo.

“What about – face-sitting? Sex in public? Anal?” Wow, Rosa is pretty curious too. Or maybe she’s just competitive, hoping to compare track records.

Jake’s eyes float off toward the ceiling while he considers this. “Yes, yes, and – did you mean giving or receiving? Because, yes and yes.”

Amy starts giggling. And can’t stop. No, really, she can’t stop. Why can’t she stop?

Rosa brings her a glass of water and sits her down at her desk so she can try to calm down.

“Wow,” Peralta says from some far-off universe. “I always knew Santiago was a prude, but I didn’t know some oblique references to butt sex would give her a mental breakdown.” Little does he know, she’s not giggling because of prudishness. The total opposite, in fact.


	4. The Case of the Lost Gummi Bear

“Yes, sir. I will do that as soon as possible.”

Amy’s on the phone with Holt, and as grateful as he is that he’s letting her do some of his work while he’s out sick, he’s also starting to make her nervous. What if she lets him down? What if her handwriting isn’t neat enough for him? What if he tells her she’s messed up so badly that she’ll never make captain? What if –

“NOOOO! I dropped my gummi bear!”

Naturally, Jake always seems to hit peak volume whenever Amy’s on the phone with someone important. Normally she would cover the mouthpiece and direct some choice words at him, but at the moment, he’s nowhere to be seen. Because he’s crawling around under her desk.

“What the hell, Peralta?” she hisses.

“Sorry, hang on, I just need to – where is it?” he asks frantically.

Amy rolls her eyes at him, though he can’t see her face. Holt has started listing instructions again, and Amy struggles to keep up with him as she takes diligent notes in her little steno pad.

Peralta’s skull bumps full-tilt into her knee. “OW,” they both yell.

“Is something wrong, Santiago?” says Holt on the phone. His voice is a little croaky from the cold that’s got him holed up in bed, but it still carries that judgmental, slightly robotic tone that makes Amy desperately want to impress him every damn day.

“No, nothing’s wrong, it’s just… Peralta,” she says, hoping that’ll be enough explanation.

“Whoa, this is quite a view,” Jake’s voice says from under the desk, and Amy suddenly becomes painfully aware that his head has ended up right between her thighs, almost up her skirt.

Instinctually, she snaps her legs shut, choking Jake in the vice-grip of her strong thighs. He makes some spluttering sounds and she lets him go, kicking him away. It’s only when Holt asks her again if there’s anything wrong that she realizes she’s been shrieking obscenities for several seconds.

Jake crawls out from under the table, holding a gummi bear and grinning. He pops it into his mouth, winks at her, and heads to his desk.

Amy never knew she could feel so angry and so turned on at the same time. And she still hasn’t answered Holt’s question.


	5. Stakeouts and Sweatpants

She should’ve known he’d fall asleep on this stakeout. It’s classic Peralta to leave Amy to do the dirty work of actually sitting around, waiting and watching.

To be fair, though, they had no idea this thing would last all night and into the morning. They got intel that the gun dealer was planning on showing up sometime between 4 and 7 A.M., and by the time they received that info, it was already 3 A.M. – so there was really nothing to do but stay in the car, drink some more coffee, and settle in for another few hours of tedium.

Amy wishes she’d brought another sweater, or a blanket. It’s cold out here this late at night. Peralta’s sleeping body seems cozy enough; as usual, he felt the need to remind her that stakeouts have no official dress code, and he’s wearing the world’s laziest-looking hoodie and for-heaven’s-sake _sweatpants_.

As Amy is silently judging his sweats for the umpteenth time that night, she notices something she didn’t notice before: Peralta is rocking a full-on boner under those slovenly slacks.

Now, she knows sleep-boners are a part of the male experience. She grew up with seven brothers; she definitely knows. But for some reason it never even occurred to her that _Peralta_ would pop a hard-on while he slept. Or that she would ever be around to see it.

She tries to look somewhere else, anywhere else, but there’s nothing to entertain her in this damn car but her cup of coffee and the turned-down-low radio, so her eyes don’t wander too far before they make their way back to Peralta’s pants.

He looks… _big_. It’s hard to tell through layers of fleece, and he’s kind of contorted with his legs up on the steering wheel, but Amy can’t help but think that Peralta seems to be packing some serious heat.

For a moment she wonders if she could slip her hand down the front of her jeans in such a way that Jake wouldn’t be able to see, were he to wake up.

And then she wonders if he would even care. Maybe he would like it. He’s already raring to go, if his sweatpant-tent is any indication.

But then he mumbles something in his sleep and rolls over onto his side, and Amy takes another sip of her coffee and assures herself she wasn’t really that interested in Jake’s sleepy hard-on. It was just the exhaustion talking.


	6. 7AM Chez Peralta

The morning after the stakeout, Amy still hasn’t slept a wink.

They’d headed to Jake’s place after they’d collared the gun dealer – after _Amy_ ’d collared him, to be precise; Jake only woke up after Amy spotted the dealer and he was still stupidly rubbing sleep from his eyes by the time she’d gotten cuffs on the guy.

Though he’d made a big show of acting too cool to care, Amy could tell Jake really did feel bad about falling asleep when he ought to have been watching out with her – so he’d offered her his couch to crash on, since he lived nearby. “I mean, whatever, you can if you want to, I don’t really care, it’s not a big deal, I just thought you might, you know, want some sleep and some coffee and maybe some eggs and whatever,” he’d stammered in one big rush. And Amy’d been so exhausted that she’d said okay.

But now she’s sitting on his couch, spine straight and eyes very much _not_ closed, and she can tell there’s no way she’s going to sleep. Not here. This is too weird. It’s _Jake’s_ place. And she’s still got post-arrest adrenaline coursing through her. And she spent the early hours of the day admiring her current gracious host’s morning wood, unbeknownst to him. So, nope. No chance of her calming down, let alone sleeping.

Jake’s leaning against the counter, sipping from a stained NYPD coffee mug and watching her.

“So, uh, you gonna – ?” He gestures to the haphazard stack of blankets and pillows he put next to the couch for her.

She shakes her head. “I’m alright.”

“Do you want – ?” He points at his own coffee cup.

She nods. He pours her a cup, brings it to her, sits next to her, close enough that his warm knee brushes against hers through his sweatpants and her slacks.

He sighs and rests his head in the hand that isn’t holding his mug. “I still can’t believe I did that,” he mumbles into his palm.

 _Me neither_ , Amy thinks. “Did what?”

“Left you to wait around for that guy alone. I should’ve… had more coffee, or… slapped myself so I’d wake up, or… had _you_ slap me. I bet you wanted to.”

She smiles, sips her drink, doesn’t say anything. She gladly would’ve slapped him a couple hours ago but now she’s feeling a little warmer toward him, for whatever reason. Or maybe she’s just too exhausted to be mad.

“The dumbest thing is,” Jake continues, “while you were watching out for the perp, I was… having a sex dream.”

Amy coughs a little on her coffee. “Huh. Were you?”

“Yeah. It was actually about you.” He turns slightly away from her to stare out the window, face turning pink.

Normally Amy would try to be at least a little polite, but now she just laughs.

For a moment Peralta gets that offended-teenage-boy, I’m-gonna-throw-a-rock-through-your-window look, but then his face softens and he laughs with her. “You were wearing a Catwoman costume.”

Amy laughs again. There doesn’t seem to be anything to say.

They sit together in silence, drinking their coffee while the sun comes up over Brooklyn outside Jake’s window. Amy tries not to imagine what it would feel like to have Jake unzip her from a leather catsuit, but it’s hard to control her thoughts when she’s this tired, so eventually she just lets her mind go there. She giggles a little, and Jake doesn’t ask her why.


	7. Jake's Discovery

“Hey Ames, do you have any gum? I asked Charles, but his was dulce de leche flavor, so… now I’m asking you.”

Jake sidles up to her desk, ass-kissing grin on his face, and Amy raises her head from her paperwork to look at him, because he smells different – fancier, like a mid-priced cologne, instead of his usual shampoo-and-chocolate-milk blend. Under his leather jacket he’s wearing a pale blue dress shirt and an actual, honest-to-goodness tie. His hair is as neat as she’s ever seen it, which isn’t saying much. “Hot date tonight, Peralta?” Amy asks.

“Eh. Could be. We’ll see.”

Dropping her gaze back to the form on her desk, Amy points to her left drawer with her pen. “In there, at the back, on the right. I think there’s some wintergreen Excel.”

She tries not to get too annoyed as Peralta rifles through the carefully organized contents of her desk and starts listing what he finds. “Index cards. A million unused pens. Sticky notes. God, you’re a dork. Glasses. Rolodex. Phone charger. Business cards with gold edging and raised print; jeez, how much did those cost you? Scissors. Stapler. Weird purple and pink plastic-looking OH MY GOD AMY SANTIAGO IS THIS A VIBRATOR?”

Amy drops her pen and spins toward him, mouth open in a silent “O” of total distress. Instinctively she strikes out at him, hitting him in the tricep so he drops the toy on the floor. She scrambles to pick it up and tries to hide it inside her blazer as if she can somehow erase the fact that he found it.

He’s looking at her with an expression of equal parts disbelief and delight. “Oh – my – god,” he says again. “Amy ‘Virgin Mary’ Santiago has a sex drive? This changes everything!”

“Shut up, Peralta,” Amy says, voice thick with shame. She tucks the vibrator into another drawer, where he can’t see it or get to it. Rosa, Boyle and Scully are all watching with mild interest from their desks, but fortunately they don’t seem to want to mock her. Not like Jake.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, raking a hand through his hair, eyes wide. “Tell me everything. Where did you buy it? Who went with you? Did you have to ask the sex shop clerk for it yourself? Did sexual words actually come out of your mouth? Paint me a picture, Amy!”

“Jake, SHUT UP,” Amy says. She hopes she sounds menacing but her voice is still shaky. All she wants to do is run to the bathroom and hide, and maybe cry, but she doesn’t want to give Peralta the satisfaction of knowing he can get to her. Even though, clearly, he can.

“Why was it in your _desk_ , though?” he probes further. “You don’t use it at work, do you? I mean, I’m sure you wouldn’t be the only one who’s ever rubbed one out in the nine-nine, but…”

“I – I left it there when I got back from an overnight trip with Teddy… I guess I just forgot to… oh, god…” Amy’s definitely going to start crying, very soon.

Rosa’s voice sounds out, loud and clear: “Leave her the fuck alone, Peralta.” Amy buries her face in her hands. She’s totally, entirely, completely humiliated – there will be no recovering from this, no going back – but at least Rosa is there for her. She knows Peralta is scared of Rosa and will drop the issue now. And he does. She’s blushing too hard to even look up, but she hears his sneakers squeaking away from her, and then the room goes silent so all she can hear is the blood pounding in her own ears.

That night, she lies in bed, the vibrator sitting on the pillow next to her. She stares at it. On the one hand, she never wants to see Jake’s stupid face again, because all she can think about is him laughing at her in front of the whole office.

But on the other hand, her mind keeps wandering to images of Jake holding the toy… turning on the power… pressing it to her body. She wonders if he’s ever used one of these on a woman before. She wonders if he’s ever “rubbed one out” in the office. She wonders if he’s having these same thoughts about her, home alone in his bed. Or out on his date.

She plants her face in her pillow and groans. There’s really no other way to react to this situation.


	8. Sex Advice

“Are you _sure_ you know where the clit is?”

Amy has not been following Jake and Charles’ conversation up til this point, but at this, she spins around from her computer to stare at them. _What the hell?_

Charles is nodding fervently. “Of course! It’s only the most important feature of the female sexual response. I may not be a Casanova like you, Jake, but I certainly know my way around a vulva.”

Jake wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, Charles, please don’t say ‘vulva.’”

Amy clears her throat and tries not to look like she’s been eavesdropping. “Uh, what are you guys talking about?”

To Charles’ immense embarrassment, Jake replies, “Boyle couldn’t make Vivian come last night and he’s worried about his skills in the sack.”

“Not _worried_ , exactly,” Charles says, eyes darting self-consciously over to Rosa, who’s sitting at her desk apparently totally disinterested in this exchange. “I think practice will help. It’s always tricky to know what a new partner will like.”

Jake laughs. “Not for me, buddy. My techniques are tried and true.” He stretches leisurely back in his chair with that self-satisfied half-smile Amy loves to hate, and then he notices she’s glaring at him. “What?”

Holt complimented Jake’s latest arrest that morning and not Amy’s, so, admittedly, she’s not feeling particularly warm toward him today. “Has it ever occurred to you that if your success rate is one hundred percent, some of those women might have been faking?”

Jake laughs again but his gaze lingers on her in a way that indicates she’s hit a nerve. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, every woman’s body is different. You can’t expect one set of techniques to work on everyone.” This is met with a stunned silence, so she sighs and continues. “Have you ever tried asking a woman what she likes? Or asking her to show you?”

Charles butts in excitedly. “I have! I do!”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Of course you do, buddy.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Charles fires back, tone rising.

“I just think, if you really knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

Amy gives him her best condescending smile. “Or maybe, if you were really a good partner, you wouldn’t have to pretend you know everything. You’d be confident enough to find out what a woman really wants and then give it to her.” She turns back around in her chair, gets back to the work she was doing. “The best sex of my life was with a guy who actually cared about what I wanted.”

She can feel Jake’s gaze digging into the back of her skull. She smiles to herself. Maybe she’s actually made a difference today. Maybe Jake’s future partners will benefit from the lesson she imparted.

Maybe one of those future partners will be _her_.

She gives her head a little shake to clear this idea away. That’s definitely too much to think about for a Tuesday morning. _Back to work, Amy,_ she tells herself.


	9. Richie's Gym, Brooklyn

It’s a Friday morning at Richie’s Gym and Amy can’t stop watching Jake do push-ups.

A month ago, when Jake announced he was about to eat his third jelly donut of the day and then messily shoved it into his mouth while making loud noises of satisfaction, Holt came out of his office, looked Jake up and down, and suggested that perhaps the detectives should start attending twice-monthly mandated gym time. “We wouldn’t want the criminals to be able to outrun you,” Holt had said in that inimitably judgey voice of his, to which Jake had grimaced through his mouthful of donut because, indeed, just the previous day Jake had lost a runaway perp due to an ill-timed stitch in his side.

Amy goes to yoga three times a week and spends most nights in front of the TV with her assortment of dumbbells, so the mandatory gym time feels a little like the after-school hours she spent locked inside when she was 12 because the resident class clown antagonized the teacher into assigning detentions for the whole class. Back then, Amy couldn’t wait to get home so she could write in her journal and listen to her Elton John tapes. Now, she just wants to do her job.

But the gym isn’t entirely without its benefits. For one thing: she gets to socialize with Rosa and Terry more than usual. For another: she gets to watch Jake do push-ups.

He’s wearing a blue muscle shirt stained with fresh sweat and some scandalously close-cut black bike shorts. At the precinct, the only parts of Jake’s body Amy typically notices are his hands (angular, deft, strong), his hair (perpetually messy), and his face (sometimes infuriatingly goofy, sometimes wonderfully sweet). The rest of him is usually hidden under ratty button-ups and leather jackets and ill-fitting jeans. But at the gym, every muscle and bone is carefully outlined in his activewear, and it’s a confusing feast for her eyes.

She watches his undulating shoulderblades, the pumping tendons in his arms, the fresh beads of sweat on his neck, and her heart thuds in her throat.

“Alright, Santiago?” says a solemn, honeyed voice from somewhere beside her. Rosa. Amy jumps, tries to remember how breathing works.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Why, what’s up?”

Rosa raises an eyebrow at her, that expression that could make anyone feel like an idiot. “I’ve been waiting to use this machine for five minutes. Shit or get off the pot.”

Amy scrambles up from the bench press she’s been sitting on, grabs her stuff and scampers away. “Sorry, sorry,” she mutters frantically. God, why is she so unhinged today?

Eyes cast behind her to make sure Rosa doesn’t look too pissed, Amy doesn’t notice she’s about to trip over Jake until it’s too late and they’re both on the floor.

“Ow! What the – Santiago?” Jake rubs his ribcage where Amy accidentally kicked it as she fell onto him. He gets up and helps her to her feet. “Trying to kill me, huh? _So_ not fair. You never attack a man when he’s doing his calisthenics and has his guard down.”

She gives him a half-hearted smile and doesn’t know what to say. He’s so close to her and he smells like he does when they’ve been chasing a perp for five blocks and are winded and adrenaline-addled: warm, sweaty, masculine. Comforting. Like Jake. Her head is swimming.

“You alright, Santiago?” he asks, putting his hand on her elbow to steady her. “You look a little pale. Maybe you should take a break. Weren’t you on that bench press machine for like 45 minutes?”

She sinks down onto a nearby bench. She is a little light-headed. Maybe she _should_ take a break. From all the exercise she’s been… not doing. “I’ll just sit for a minute,” she says weakly. “Too much cardio, I guess.”

Jake watches her for another few moments before he’s satisfied she’ll be okay. “Alright, I’mma get back to it. Just call me if you need me.” He starts toward the treadmills.

There’s a long, dark line of sweat from Jake’s shoulders to the small of his back, and Amy’s eyes trace it again and again like a touchstone.


	10. Alley Fight

Amy doesn’t know how it happens, exactly. One minute she, Jake, and Rosa are chasing an alleged hitman down 71st Ave. at top speed. The next minute, they’ve got the perp backed against a 10-foot-high fence. And then, after seconds that feel like hours, Amy’s on the ground and there’s a searing pain in her cheek that’s threatening to make her black out.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Jake is yelling. “Get your fucking hands off her!” There’s the sound of the hulking man’s body being thrown against the chainlink behind him. The clink of cuffs. And Rosa spitting. Spitting in the guy’s face, Amy suspects.

“You fuckwit. Punching a goddamn police officer,” Rosa’s yelling in a more forceful voice than Amy’s ever heard from her – which is saying something, because it’s Rosa. “We’re gonna get you for homicide and now we’re gonna get you for assault and resisting arrest too. You fuckin’ dickbag.” Amy can hear the dude whimpering as Rosa forces him into cuffs and drags him away by his wrists, probably more forcefully than she needs to.

Finally pushing herself up off the concrete, Amy raises a hand to her cheek and feels the golfball-sized lump already forming there. It’s so tender that her own touch makes her flinch. _What an asshole._

Jake extends both arms down to her. She hadn’t realized he was still there, but of course he is. He wouldn’t leave her. She takes his hands and pulls herself to her feet.

He reaches for her face and she turns away from him instinctively, trying to avoid the pain of his touch. “I don’t think it’s broken,” she tells him. “Just hurts. Like a bitch.”

Despite his stone-serious expression, he laughs a little. “Did you just swear? That doesn’t happen too often.”

“Yeah, well. A 200-pound hitman just clocked me in an alley. I think I’m entitled.”

Jake’s eyebrows knit together in an expression of genuine concern that makes her heart skip around in her chest for entirely non-hitman-related reasons. “He’s gone now. Don’t worry. Rosa got him. And Terry’s waiting in the car. That dude isn’t getting away again. We won’t let him.”

He extends a hand toward her face again, almost like he can’t help himself, but then sees her wince and takes her hand instead. His feels warm and a little sweaty against her palm.

“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you,” he says softly. So serious.

Amy almost laughs. “Jake, I’m a cop. I’m supposed to be able to protect myself. It’s not your fault some psychopath punched me. It’s an occupational hazard of what we do.” She’s very, very aware of how weird it is that he’s holding her hand, and even more aware of how much she likes it, _needs_ it right now, after the shock to her system that was that punch.

He starts to lead her out of the alley, back toward the cop car they came in. “I know. I know I don’t have to protect you.” He squeezes her hand. “I just want to. I wish I could.”

They walk in silence for a little while. Amy thinks about how people passing them on the street must think they’re a couple. Maybe they’re wondering why someone as handsome as Jake is with a facially deformed freak like her. She wishes she’d brought some concealer for the gruesome bruise welling up on her cheek. She wants to be pretty right now. For him.

They get to the car. He opens the passenger-side door for her, lets her in, and closes it behind her. Then he goes around to the driver’s side and gets in.

There’s a moment of solemn silence before he leans over the gear shift and kisses her.

His lips are so soft on hers, imploring, gentle, with none of the urgency or anger she heard in his voice when he was screaming at the perp who punched her. Jake’s acerbic, juvenile façade melts away and all she feels on his lips is the genuine sweetness she’s always known he had, somewhere, hidden away.

As he deepens the kiss, he puts his hand on her neck, then her jaw, until it crawls up her face and bumps her bruise. “Ow,” she says against his mouth.

“Sorry,” he croaks. “Sorry. I forgot.” He moves his hand back down to her shoulder, then seems to think better of it and takes it away entirely, shifting back across the center line of the car into his own seat. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he says heavily. “Probably the last thing you want right now is some dude getting all up in your personal space again.”

It takes a significant amount of self-restraint on Amy’s part not to laugh out loud, climb into his lap and keep on kissing him. It just doesn’t seem right, not yet. And her face still hurts, anyway.

“No, it’s okay,” she says finally. “Let’s try it again when this bruise heals. Then you can grab my face as much as you want.”

He looks at her with wide, interested eyes, flashes her a hint of a smile, and turns the car key in the ignition.


End file.
